Links to sites on Persian Food:

Recipes for Persian Food abound on the web. You can try:

• Iranchamber.com's recipe page.
• Farzin Mokhtarian and Roxana Zarghooni's collection.
• Ketab Bookstore's selection of cookbooks.

There is another cookbook (written in Persian) called "ketabe mostetAbeh Ashpazi az seer tA peeAz" by Najaf DaryAbandary, which, in addition to thousands of recipes from Iran and also the rest of the world, seeks to demonstrate that Persian food is historically unique and, of course, superior to all other foods (at least that's what the guy at the bookstore said it did. I haven't read it myself. My copy is sitting here, intimidating me.) I can't seem to find this book anywhere on the web. Ask for it at your local Persian bookseller's. If you live in Los Angeles, this is easy to do. Go to the corner of Westwood and Ohio and walk up and down a few blocks. There are 8 or 9 Persian bookstores there. If you are anywhere else in the country, sorry. Don't know where you can find a Persian bookstore. Legend has it there is one in Georgetown.

Where Can I Eat Persian Food (Because You Know I'm Not Going to Cook)

Good Question. If you don't have Persian friends who are also good cooks, you might need to try a restaurant. To find one near you, try the Farsieats.com directory of Persian/Iranian restaurants. Hopefully it's up to date. I plan to check out the ones in Brazil as a random sampling. If those are up to date, we can assume the rest are, too. No? Wait a second! It's missing Asia and the rest of Latin America. There must be some restaurants there. And no Bongo Burger (aka Persian Burger) of Berkeley! And what about Ali Baba Persian Restaurant in Hoover, Alabama? (Hmmm...is Al-Abama an Arabic word?)

Which just goes to show you, in a world of billions of people, no list can ever be complete. The database of life is infinitely changing. If it's not there now, by the time you get to that city, the restaurant might appear right around the corner. Keep looking. You will find the food. You will eat. It will be fabulous. Nooshe' JAn-et.

Future of Iranian Food

What is the next step for launching Iranian food in the larger global scheme of things? Well, luckily some people have taken it upon themselves to promote our food and cultural ways, especially Najmieh Batmanglij who works tirelessly as an ambassador for Persian food.

I suppose the next step is to have a show on the Food Network or other mainstream Cable channel. (I looked and all they have on the website is a recipe for Fesenjan and some pastry. Sad.)

And we could always use a few cult movies on food, similar to other ethnic breakaway movies such as:

• Like Water for Chocolate
• Tampopo
• Eat, Drink, Man, Woman
• Woman on Top
• Babbette's Feast
• Big Night (with Tony Shalhoub)
• Chocolat
• Soul Food

Now we need to get ourselves a "Ghahraman" of food to become an Iron Chef (although these cooking competitions aren't about a specific country's cuisine, but rather about guerilla cooking in general. How is someone going to "Persianize" a dish when the ingredients they are given are an eel, brussel sprouts and turnip juice? Still, having some Iranian become renowned for improvising in the kitchen has that gratuitous "Go Team" sort of random pride thing going for it.)

Iran and Wine

پدرم روضه رضوان به دو گندم بفروخت
ناخلف باشم من گر به جوى نفروشم

OK, you're right, that's a beer reference, but you get the idea.

A lot of devout Muslim Persians like to say (and also non-devout Persians in the presence of the devout ones) that when the great Persian poets talk about wine (which they do at great length: "I'm drunk, you're crazy who's going to take us home" say's Rumi) they are rhapsodizing, of course, about a SPIRITUAL drunkenness. This may or may not be true, nevertheless, one thing the historical record seems to show is that wine originated in Iran, around the Neolithic Period, at "Chateau Haji Firuz"

Since then, of course, the nation embraced Islam and wine has been banned. (Of course, these spiritually drunk poets were also Muslims. Sufis. So was the wine literally banned and spiritually drunk, or was the wine spiritually banned and literally drunk? I'll let the scholars argue.) And yet some Iranians long nostalgically for the days of Persian wine. To comfort themselves, they go out and get a bottle of Shiraz wine, figuring that since it's named after a city in Iran, it must come from Persian grape varietals that are now grown elsewhere. So even though Iran dropped the whole wine ball, in a way we outsourced it to the rest of the world so they could do the work. And now we can come along and say (whether we drink it or not), look, wine from Iran is still around! And very tasty, too (so I'm told).

Sadly, a search of the internet for the origin of Shiraz wine finds this article that discredits the Shiraz wine story. Feeling somehow depressed by this, I sent the author an email asking: Well then, are there any grape varieties that did originate from what is now Iran? I am on a (purely intellectual and spiritual) quest to revive the wine heritage of Iran/Persia, and it would be nice to know that there is a grape variety in existence that might have been the same variety that was (spiritually) enjoyed by the legendary Persian poets of yore. I received this response which is promising, but also indicates a lot of work left on this quest:

"In a sense, one could say that all European grape varieties probably have their roots in Iran (Persia), or at least the Mesopotamian region, since it is widely believed that Vitis vinifera originated there. While individual varieties arose at different times in different regions of the world, their ancestors were most likely first cultivated in Persia.

As for individual varieties that arose in Iran/Persia, I'm afraid that I'm not going to be much help. There has been so much trade in that region for so many thousands of years that it would probably take some serious DNA research, and probably some corroborating historical research to figure out which varieties originated in Persia, if any are still grown today (and I suspect that there are some).

I would assume that the best bet would be to look at whatever varieties are currently grown there (except for obvious recent imports). Unfortunately, I have no idea at all what varieties those might be. Since my interest in grapes is primarily about wine, and since Iran doesn't produce much wine these days, I haven't really looked at their production, and I suspect that there isn't much current information available in the US, given the state of diplomatic relations over the past 25 years or so.

I don't think anyone knows for certain what the ancient grapes of Shiraz (the region) were, but you might be interested in this link. It presents some pages from "The History of Ancient and Modern Wines" by Alexander Henderson, written in 1824. He mentions grapes called: "kimmish" and "anguar anji" (I've never heard of either of these). You might want to try to find the original of this book. Sorry I don't have any better information for you. Regards, Marcel"

Dude, the internet is amazing.